The Program Planning Questions (PPQs) are a set of questions provided to assist institutions as they plan, design, and implement a Bilingual Authorization program and the new Bilingual Teaching Performance Expectations (BTPEs). The Bilingual Authorization Program Standards Panel reviewed each program standard and performance expectation and wrote the planning questions based on the key concepts they identified within the standards and performance expectations. The full language of the program standards and BTPEs is available on the Commission’s standards webpage.

Important notice: Institutions are not required to provide a response to the PPQs. They are intended to be used by institutions as a resource guide only. PPQs will not be used by review teams during Initial Program Review, Program Review, or during an Accreditation Site Visit as review teams will be reviewing programs for alignment to the program standards and BTPEs.

Standard 1: Program Design

  1. How does the program philosophy communicate an equity and assets-based orientation responsive to sociolinguistic, socioemotional, and sociopolitical factors for diverse learners in multilingual settings?
  2. How does the program engage bilingual candidates and the community to inform program design, objectives, and impact?
  3. How does the program provide ongoing professional learning and development for bilingual program faculty, supervisors, resident/mentor teachers and leadership team members?
  4. How does the program engage bilingual candidates, faculty, mentors, and the community to inform program infrastructure and resource prioritization?
  5. How does the program identify and operationalize criteria for collaboration with partner districts?
  6. How does the program collaborate with local districts to provide ongoing professional learning and development with a focus on bilingual education for receiving teachers, mentors, and leaders?
  7. How does the program engage diverse bilingual candidates, faculty, mentors, teachers, and communities to inform development of fieldwork experiences?
  8. What research-based practices for bilingual teacher preparation and adult learning, including reflective practices, are evident in the program’s curriculum design?
  9. How does the program provide varied experiences for candidates to observe, document, and assess students in two or more languages?
  10. How does the program engage the bilingual candidates and the community to inform the development of coursework coupled with fieldwork experiences?
  11. How are program options defined for each pathway and shared with bilingual authorization candidates?
  12. What criteria are used to ensure each pathway provides substantive fieldwork experiences? How does the program recognize prior bilingual teaching experience?
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Standard 2: Preparing Candidates toward Mastery of the Bilingual Teaching Performance Expectations (BTPEs)

  1. How are course syllabi and signature assignments aligned explicitly with the BTPEs in ways that follow an introduction, development, and assessment of mastery sequence?
  2. How are coursework and field experiences explicitly integrated to develop sequentially and assess the practical applications of the BTPEs?
  3. How are course and fieldwork experiences designed to provide bilingual candidates with an ongoing flow of formative feedback towards the mastery of the BTPEs? 4. How are instructors and qualified mentors collaboratively and intentionally designing the scope of BTPE implementation?
  4. How are programs engaging in cycles of self-assessment with regards to balanced and thorough implementation of the BTPEs?
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Standard 3: Field Experience

  1. How does the program engage in ongoing conversations with LEAs that serve as sites for field placements?
  2. How are partnerships developed to secure meaningful field placements for bilingual candidates in classrooms that demonstrate exemplary teaching practices as determined by the employer and preparation program?
  3. How does the program ensure qualified and trained bilingual mentors who can guide improvement in practice?
  4. How are coursework and field experience concepts of knowledge integrated to provide an alignment with the BTPEs?
  5. How does the bilingual program address linguistic proficiency, cultural responsiveness, and pedagogical competence described in BTPEs? 6. How are the 20-hours of field experience organized in a way that meaningfully represent the whole range of experiences and skills expected from bilingual candidates as reflected in the BTPEs?
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Standard 4: Monitoring, Supporting, and Assessing Candidate Progress towards Meeting Program Requirements

  1. How are program assignments explicitly aligned and sequenced from foundational coursework to field experiences to reflect an increasing mastery of the BTPEs?
  2. What processes are in place to keep a cumulative record of candidates’ progress toward the mastery of the BTPEs?
  3. What processes are in place to ensure faculty, supervisors, and mentors monitor and provide support and assistance to candidates?
  4. What structures exist in the program to identify and support candidates not making adequate progress towards meeting the program expectations and requirements?
  5. What data sources are used to guide the program regarding candidate satisfaction in meeting all program requirements and mastering BTPEs?
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Standard 5: Assessment of Candidate Competence

  1. How does the program assess and document candidates’ skills and abilities in developing linguistic repertoires?
  2. How does the program define and use a comprehensive assessment plan (i.e., diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment processes) to guide and coach candidate performance?
  3. What criteria are established for institutional and field based individuals responsible for monitoring, supporting, and assessing bilingual teacher candidate’s performance?
  4. What processes are in place to document evidence of candidates’ language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing?
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BTPE 1- Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning

  1. How does the program ensure that candidates develop understanding of the philosophical, theoretical, and research bases for dual language/bilingual education, including knowledge of the historical and legal foundations of bilingual education in the United States and California and their effects on bilingual education programs?
  2. How does the program help candidates to develop understanding of the theoretical foundations, practice, limitations, and effects of the deficit perspective of bilingual education (e.g., viewing the primary language as an obstacle, limiting use of the primary language, promoting assimilation in the target culture) and the enrichment perspective of bilingual education (e.g., viewing the primary language as a right and an asset, promoting the development of bilingualism and biculturalism, promoting acculturation to the target culture?
  3. How does the program develop each candidates’ understanding of the transferability of language and literacy skills and the acquisition of content and context knowledge between the primary and target languages, including ways in which language transfer can be affected by the level of compatibility between the primary and target language?
  4. How does the program prepare candidates to enhance school-home partnerships, and assist in identifying and using community resources? (i.e., candidates support families to contribute their knowledge to culturally inclusive institutions and participate in school forums and organizations)
  5. How does the program prepare candidates to promote school-home partnerships, acknowledging families as partners who bring diverse cultural capital to inform and enhance the schooling experience of their children?
  6. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate understanding of ways in which students’ life experiences (immigrant or refugee experience, prior educational experiences, oral tradition), language development, and language variations can be used to foster content learning in the primary and target languages?
  7. How does the program promote the candidates’ understanding of central concepts of intercultural communication including patterns of nonverbal communication, oral and written discourse and origins of dialectical and/or tonal variations and their influence on standard academic language development?
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BTPE 2- Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning

  1. How does the program ensure candidates’ motivation, participation, and achievement are influenced by an intercultural classroom climate and school community?
  2. How will the program ensure candidates' ability to create classrooms where students feel valued, safe, and respected by adults and peers and use principles related to SEL, sociolinguistics, and sociopolitics?
  3. How does the program measure candidates' understanding and application of strategies for the different typologies of English language learners?
  4. What components of the program support teachers to understand brain research on the developmental processes of bilingualism and biliteracy to include cognitive, bicognitive, and metacognitive processes?
  5. What components of the program encourage candidates to develop an asset-oriented frame of reference rooted in equity and social justice. How does the program draw from evidenced-based research; inclusive of culturally sustaining pedagogies to reflect the dynamic nature of culture as it relates to the values, traditions, and practices?
  6. How do candidates maintain high expectations for content learning, language, literacy and oracy learning within a bilingual instructional program or setting, with appropriate support for the full range of learners in the setting?
  7. Which components of the program will establish equitable maintenance of clear expectations for productive student-to-student as well as student-to-teacher interactions?
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BTPE 3- Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning (Content Specific Pedagogy)

  1. What components of the program support teachers to acknowledge, welcome, and/or leverage translanguaging for multilingual learners as cultural capital?
  2. What components of the program prepare candidates to develop and apply grammatical and linguistic conventions and constructions to help students access the content of the curriculum?
  3. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate understanding of the interrelatedness of language and literacy development to plan, select and use a variety of strategies for developing students’ content-area knowledge and skills in bilingual education settings including language and grade-level content objectives in lesson, providing linguistic scaffolding and activating background knowledge and experiences?
  4. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate the ability to evaluate and incorporate technology to develop students’ literacy in the primary and target languages as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of technology for literacy development?
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BTPE 4: Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students

  1. What components of the program support candidates to understand the developmental processes of bilingualism and biliteracy, and apply knowledge for appropriate language use and usage (e.g., translation, language allocation by program model) when interacting with students at different developmental stages of bilingualism and biliteracy?
  2. How does the program provide candidates the understanding of ways in which variations in students’ primary languages (e. g, dialectal and/or tonal differences, use of vernacular forms) can be used to facilitate the development of social and academic language?
  3. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate understanding of a variety of instructional approaches that foster student engagement and interaction and the development of higher-order thinking skills (e.g., analysis, inference, synthesis, evaluation) and facilitate students’ understanding and use of content-specific language functions (e.g., analyzing, comparing and contrasting, persuading, citing evidence, making hypotheses) in oral and written forms of the primary and target language?
  4. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate the ability to develop, adapt, evaluate, and/or align primary and target language materials, content standards and curriculum frameworks?
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BTPE 5: Assessing Student Learning

  1. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate understanding of the roles, purposes and uses of standardized and non-standardized primary and target language assessments in bilingual education settings in order to interpret the results to plan, organize, modify and differentiate instruction in the appropriate language(s) in bilingual education settings?
  2. Which components of the program employ a variety of culturally relevant, unbiased instructional and assessment strategies?
  3. How does the program employ evidence-based approaches to assess student achievement while also providing opportunities as appropriate for students to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills?
  4. Which components of the program provide opportunities for candidates to collaborate with colleagues across grade levels and subject areas, as applicable, to interpret formative and summative assessment results to identify students’ level of academic proficiency in the languages of instruction as well as content knowledge, and use this information in planning instruction?
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BTPE 6: Developing as a Professional Educator

  1. How does the program ensure that candidates can analyze the effects of federal, state, and local policies on the level of parental engagement at the school site?
  2. How does the program promote the candidates’ understanding of cultural influences on learning and teaching in bilingual program settings and the understanding of the effects of intercultural communication on school/community climate, student motivation, participation and achievement?
  3. How does the program ensure that candidates have the ability to reflect upon and implement effective practice that fosters the development of biliteracy through content instruction?
  4. How does the program ensure that candidates demonstrate the ability to review and evaluate materials, to identify potential areas of offense or bias (e.g., race, class, gender, religion, country of origin) and to ensure appropriate representation of linguistic and cultural diversity within and across language and cultural groups?
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Updated June 26, 2023